Protuoso Biosciences has secured $9.5m in seed financing to develop its platform which combines multiple therapeutic modalities to target diseases through several pathways simultaneously.
Founded by Willie Xiang and Tim Lu in California, the biotech is developing multifunctional biologics using what it calls MUXBODIES – recombinant fusion proteins designed to integrate a wide range of modalities. Protuoso states it can combine antibodies, cytokines, peptides, and other signalling modules into a single therapeutic.
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Proceeds from the seed financing round, led by Taya Venture and Darwin Ventures, along with participation from NSG Ventures, SEEDS and others, will be used to advance the platform.
Protuoso describes its biologics as having “mix-and-match” architectures, which allows the engineering of therapies that engage multiple biological mechanisms simultaneously. This, the startup adds, can help overcome efficacy limitations of medicines that act only via a single pathway.
Co-founder Xiang says: “Many of the largest disease areas such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and autoimmune diseases are fundamentally driven by interconnected biology, but most drugs still act on a single pathway.
“Our platform gives us the ability to engineer multiple modalities into a single molecule to target a variety of disease mechanisms.”
Protuoso has not disclosed specific assets in its pipeline, but confirmed it has programmes across cardiometabolic, oncology, and autoimmune diseases. In cardiometabolic diseases, the company is developing drugs designed to target root causes of obesity and the resulting pathology in organs. In oncology, the biotech has engineered “armoured” immune cell engagers that overcome limitations with current solid-tumour therapeutics.
Multifunctional drugs are not a new concept – aspirin is perhaps the most well-known example, working on multiple biological pathways simultaneously. However, most multifunctional drugs in the commercial realm are small molecules. There have been inroads, however.
Bispecific and trispecific antibodies, which are designed to bind two and three disease antigens simultaneously, have become a robust biologic option in the multifunctional field. Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) – biologics attached to highly potent synthetic drug – are also an area of increasing focus in oncology.
Co-founder Lu said that biologics combining multiple functions into a single molecule had “historically been very complex to engineer.” He said Protuoso’s platform mitigates this hurdle and allows scalable development of multifunctional biologics.
Lu concluded: “We believe this approach will unlock more effective therapies for complex diseases and expand the range of what biologics can achieve.”
